Bharat 2020 – Resources and Wealth

A nation is a large aggregate of people united by common descent, history, culture or language, inhabiting a particular territory with their own government. By the application of the definition of language we have many nations within our country, but the definition of culture and history we have one nation called Akhand Bharat. The country Akhand Bharat is broken into several smaller units over time and some parts occupied by others by use of military and few areas lost in wars, and many other reasons. But what is left of this land is today is widely known as India.

Several hundred ago, the nation was rich with wealth and people happy under various kings. This nation has a history of not invading its neighbor in the past 1000years. There are legends that during a kingdom of Sri Krishnadevaraya, gems were sold on streets. History apart, recent statement goes on to mention Indian women have more gold in holding than the IMF, World Bank and some of the developed nations. If anyone ever mentions that India is a poor country, we should condemn that person whoever it may be. This country is kept poor and made to be poor by the ill conceived policies of the governments after Independence.

The wealth distribution is the major problem in every country, because it gets accumulated in the hands of a few people. It is said that 90% of the wealth gets accumulated in 10% of the population.  This disparity is further highlighted by the richest people list, the richest corporations/companies, who have accumulated their wealth by squeezing the money out of the lowest strata of the citizens. Thus for a person  sleeping with empty stomach, the money migght have travelled into the accounts of the top 500richest people. This is the obsessive accumulation disorder. Now at the end of the accumulation with not knowing to do, these people talk about giving back to the society.

Wealth in the natural form can be mines, knowledge, manpower, natural products (agricultural products, milk, etc) etc.   Every country has some form of wealth and it is the job of the people and their leaders to identify and harness the wealth of the nation for the betterment of the people at large. The people and the leaders should work in tandem to harness the wealth available and utilize for the betterment of the entire lot. For doing this initial money is required. Just like to start any business money is required, even for a nation to start improving itself money is required.  Banks and rich individuals/countries can lend money to the poor /needy individuals/countries with a interest, which has to be paid over a period of time. Any businessman/country should utilize these finances or better to say manage the finances not to fall in a cyclic debt and lose its resources to rich who will plunder the nation.

If a business fails, it can be wound up but a nation cannot be wound up, so here the big and rich nations will put a puppet government and plunder the nation’s resources in the name of development. The nation will be like slave without its standing in many matters, but the leaders act as if they are in absolute control. The rich nations start to manipulate the policies of these nations to benefit themselves and their people and if any nation tries to come out of this debt more problems arise due to the banking and currency control that is practiced in the world trade.

The dollar/euro standard has wreaked havoc in the financial world; where in the fate of poor country is dependent on the state of the rich countries. Few countries are immune to this financial disaster. Any country where financial institutions rule the policies of government, people for sure will be losers. Why should be spending of a nation be kept on increasing, while a company always tries to cut the costs and avoid wastages. The popular schemes announced by the governments from time to time to keep the poor sections happy is always wastage of resources. A government should focus on building infrastructure, facilitate the people in setting up business/industries and should invest heavily in research.

The present rich nations buy a product from third world countries, put their brand names and sell at cost 3times the original purchase price thus making enormous profits.  The knowledge is monetized with extreme greed and making more and more people poor and keeping them so. The disparity is so high, that this type of culture has led to protests in some developed countries, but the poor who protested finally had to fill their stomachs and finally the protests have become less stronger and had a slow death. The monetizing of knowledge in the form patents is a brutal assault on the free knowledge system. A product that costs Rs.1 is sold at Rs.100 due to the monopoly of a certain company.

In general people can be classified into 3categories based on their position in the cycle of markets – customers, supplier, process. Every person is one of these at least once and this triad repeats itself from the poorest to the richest in the world.  All skills are not of equal value just like all metals are not of equal value. So the unskilled labour who can do some odd jobs , unskilled agricultural labour etc, are usually at the bottom of the pyramid, while the companies which sell the products are at the top. The competition at the top usually is in the form of making more profits is achieved by increasing the sale or by reducing the input cost. The later is preferred since it is more controllable by the owners, which flows down in steps till the unskilled labour is affected. The same competition at the bottom due to higher supply than demand makes the value lesser, increases the profits of not the labourer but the person who uses them.

People sometimes wonder, why a software engineer who works in an AC room is getting money in lakhs while an agricultural labour who toils in sun gets only few thousands. This is because of the perceived lack of dignity of labour and a chance of eliminating the labour from the works in the fields. Now we donot have many agricultural laborers and many farmers are facing the problems during harvest and will be forced to employ machines which may not be economical due to the smaller land holding and uneven terrains.  Some companies bulldoze several smaller ones and become giants and have a monopoly in their particular domains and the governments can do little to avoid such situations because the monsters are grown by the government themselves.

The disparity will always exist but the money generated should get circulated throughout the community. The accumulation of wealth is acceptable only when each citizen has a equal chance to get the basic requirements by spending the money he earns by doing some works. Many people donot mind paying a few thousands for a pant, but think twice to give a hundred raise to the domestic help, watchman etc. People are more worried about accumulating then spending in the hope that some future disaster will occur to them and they have to be ready. Insurance people have perfected the art of instilling this fear and making people to buy policies which the people may never require. The tax benefits given to such dubious schemes are too many and only to further help a few to accumulate the wealth.

Many people want to invest in smaller countries where the money can be quickly doubled and where there are bad regulations. The stock market scams are one such where artificial jacking up on the value is done and then after the people make their profits, the markets falls due to which many lose the money they never owned. The real wealth of the country is the money that is held in the savings accounts and the government should avoid the several dubious schemes and keep the finances simpler. Today in the credit, people are spending the money they donot own thus not valuing the money, and many are not able to spend the money they have because it buys lesser than what is required.

So long as the financial systems are made complicated, the divide between the rich and the poor will keep on increasing. For a country which expects to be a developed nation, and to achieve the vision of Bharat 2020, the financial mess present in the country has to be simplified and controlled. The source and sinks of all the money should be identified and the wealth created within the nation should never be allowed to taken out in the name of royalty, monopoly of certain companies. The foreign nations sell their products at elevated prices to only loot the wealth of this nation.  Complex systems should be simplified to achieve rapid progress.